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Notorious B.I.G.

Duets: The Final Chapter  Hear it Now

RS: 2of 5 Stars Average User Rating: 3.5of 5 Stars

2006

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Unlike the bottomless well of posthumous 2Pac vocals, there obviously wasn't much left in Biggie's vault when he died at age twenty-four in 1997. A dispiriting step down from 1999's already-a-little-ghoulish Born Again, the mistitled Duets (where's the Frank Sinatra joint?) relies on recasting verses from the albums released in B.I.G.'s lifetime onto new beats smothered with high-gloss guests. Hearing B.I.G. paired with Nelly on "Nasty Girl" or rhyming over one of Swizz Beatz's same old Ruff Ryders-sounding tracks just feels like seeing Humphrey Bogart reconstituted in that Diet Coke ad. Of course, you can't go wrong with Biggie and Jay-Z together on "Whatchu Want," and it's great to hear Scarface and Akon with B.I.G. on "Hustler's Story," in part because they make sense together. But when Duets goes from a Bob Marley song that doesn't quite jell to Korn's wack "Wake Up Now," the album's concept crumbles. On "It Has Been Said," a track where Biggie appears only to say "uh-huh," a certain Sean Combs spouts, "Critics lashed, said I made a fortune off of his passin'/All I did was build a dynasty off of his passion." Methinks the Diddy doth protest too much.

PETER RELIC

(Posted: Jan 12, 2006)

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Review 1 of 1

No Screen Name writes:

Not Rated


I find it strange how people find it hard just to REPLICATE the moods that Ready to Die or Life After Death put people through. Rather than exploring and really dissecting the untouched levels of an incredible character, whoever made the album (I love Diddy) chose the simpler task of relating who some look to as a god, to the cheap masses- and only for $9.99!! ….losers. Even the videos are just ass, wow.
P.S.A from a hater- don’t buy it
How come you can get all those artists but you cant even get Dr Dre, (fuck your shit ass politics), Premier? Alchemist? GZA? Neptunes?...?? Even corny ass Kanye West- (fans are allowed to criticize) to produce the album anything that feels like B.I.G. Rather than getting a bunch or artist who sounded like they did it just to get paid (exceptions- Jay, Mobb Deep and Bob Marley).…I guess I just needed something heavy to sit in my head, I listened to the album twice and couldn’t even think anything about it afterwards. A Biggie record-are you serious??? I mean even if you were just trying to sell records you could have put LL, Rakim, Run DMC, Fugees, or anyone of those supposed to be nobodies on there (sarcasm)
Like, really, I love Diddy, but simple formulas give you simple answers. I mean you have examples of failure after failure of how Interscope killed whoever that nigger Tupac was supposed to be (forgive my blasphemous sarcasm again)…but what do you do? Copy they same formula that butchered a legacy?…hmmm…
Now I have to sit here arguing with 16 year olds telling me some dumb shit like Jim Jones would smash on B.I.G if he rapped and how over-rated he was. FUCK YOU
It really pisses me off that I’m going to have to download a Biggie album, wow, someone fucked up. The Notorious cared about his music, I can’t even talk about the album it’s just an OkAy mixtape, but that’s just my opinion, so put it in your ass.

Jan 10, 2006 01:11:53

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